QRTR, New York Sunrise
Raised in Western Massachusetts, Meagan Rodriguez moved to the East Village ten years ago to study film at NYU. “There was this immediate feeling of liberation, like I could suddenly wear anything I wanted and be whoever I felt like being. Honestly it was overwhelming.” And that was only a start. The real kick came in a few years later when she discovered the Brooklyn nightlife. A new horizon opened up: she started organizing parties, deejaying and producing music under the alias QRTR. In Spring 2020, she released her first album Drenched. Then the world shut down.
Photos by Bren Lyn Haragan
NOUVEAU YORK: A recurrent question for our times: how have you been? How did you stay motivated and sane through the last months?
MEAGAN RODRIGUEZ : Truthfully, I don’t know that I did stay totally sane during the last several months. I think I’m just now finally starting to get to a good place mentally and emotionally. The motivation to keep working on music was very much a fleeting sensation, and the moment I felt even a drop of inspiration I had to immediately sit down and get to work or I’d find myself stagnant for another day or week. It helped to actively put down my phone, to listen to my favorite music and to read – but anyone struggling with mental health knows those things are always easier said than done.
NY: You released your first album Drenched in March 2020, right before NYC’s lockdown. It must have been a weird feeling.
MR: I am looking forward to never releasing an album during a lockdown again! I mean of course I was bummed, but I was also hyper-aware of the gravity of the situation. Initially I felt really weird promoting the album when it dropped, but it quickly became clear that people were desperate to be distracted and feel any bit of normalcy. I felt lucky to be able to provide that for people and to connect on an intimate level with my friends and fans at a time when we were all feeling so isolated.
NY: In a strange way, the album works great as a soundtrack for those months stuck at home, with everything being on hold. It’s dance music but it’s also very emotional and “cinematic” and we’ve been living in some sort of movie.
MR: I hate that I’m saying this, but yes – you could say it felt “on brand.” The album’s press release literally features a quote from me referring to the album as a collection of “dystopian lullabies.” My goal with music is always to play with contradiction – how can I make someone want to dance and cry at the same time? I think during those months at home a lot of people (including myself) were oscillating between hopelessness and hopefulness and Drenched was written with that very feeling in mind, so it was definitely a bit on the nose in that sense.
“I would imagine my dad spending a night out and then hitting Wohop at 3am. Maybe hopping on the train as the sun rose, after grabbing a coffee at the bodega. A lot of things I’d end up doing once I moved here.”
NY: You said, it was a “very dark year”. Was New York killing you, or did you find some support and hope in the city?
MR: New York wasn’t killing me, but a lot of what I love about living here came to a halt. I love dancing with strangers and eating in packed restaurants. I love catching up with friends at a hole in the wall bar. I love starting the night at a friend’s party and then ending up at three different clubs. I couldn’t do any of the things that bring me so much joy, and it felt like a bright light in my life had suddenly gone dim. Though over the course of lockdown, I danced outside with my masked neighbors at impromptu block parties, saw new faces (at least half of their faces) while delivering groceries with Bed-Stuy Strong, and watched fireworks light up the sky from my rooftop. Moments like those felt uniquely New York, and were reminders that I made the right choice by staying.
NY: You were raised in Western Massachusetts in a Portuguese and Puerto Rican family. Tell us about your fantasy of NYC at that time, did your family had any impact on it?
MR: My dad grew up in Brooklyn and moved to Western Massachusetts with my mother right before I was born. I still have family living in Sunset Park, so we’d come to New York pretty often to visit them, buy knockoff brands and eat at Wohop. Although I came to visit a lot growing up, I think I did still have a fantasy of what living here was actually like. My dad was obsessed with Freestyle music, so I always imagined what kind of clubs and parties he went to in the 80s. I’m not sure if he’d ever really tell me... I would imagine him spending a night out and then hitting [Chinatown restaurant] Wohop at 3am with friends. Maybe hopping on the train as the sun rose, after grabbing a coffee at the bodega. A lot of things I’d end up doing once I moved here.
NY: Could you tell us about your first trip in the city, your first impressions, sensations while walking in the streets?
MR: Ah, I really can’t remember my first trip, but I do have vivid memories of my brother getting baby turtles as pets from Chinatown. I’m not sure if it was necessarily during my first trip or not because I was so young, but the memory of experiencing sheer jealousy makes it feel like it was yesterday.
NY: You moved to NYC in the very early 2010’s. Tell us about those first months, living in the East Village.
MR: I moved here in 2010 to study film at NYU. Although I visited the city a bit growing up, the East Village was very foreign to me. There was this immediate feeling of liberation, like I could suddenly wear anything I wanted and be whoever I felt like being. Honestly it was overwhelming. I remember walking around St. Marks Place for the first time and feeling like I entered a movie set. I’d dress up in my weirdest outfit, get lost in the village with my roommate and always end up at a Ray’s Pizza wondering if it was the original or not (it never was). The first few months of living here, I’d wake up every morning surprised that I wasn’t back in my childhood bedroom.
“NY nightlife helped open my eyes to a world beyond the little work bubble I was holed up in. It was everything that I didn’t know I needed.”
NY: How did those first months collide with your fantasy of New York?
MR: My fantasy of NY didn’t quite involve academia, so it all felt really new – it wasn’t until after college (and moving to Brooklyn) that my fantasy started to align with my reality of living in the city.
NY: You once said “I think most people who move here from somewhere else usually experience that phase where they feel like they are getting chewed up and spit out by the city...” In your case, you overcame that experience with music.
MR: I worked really hard while in college. I was a full-time student, and consistently had multiple part-time jobs to be able to afford living here. I started working professionally in film & TV before I even graduated and had a full-time gig lined up the day after my last class at NYU. I didn’t get to experience any break after four years of undergrad and slid straight into the workforce with that same workaholic energy. I was getting burnt out and taken advantage of at work and realized I needed a release or I might implode. That’s when I started participating in nightlife – going to shows at 285 Kent and Glasslands, attending my first warehouse parties in places I don’t remember and discovering fellow queers at The Woods. It helped open my eyes to a world beyond the little work bubble I was holed up in. It was inspiring and rejuvenating and everything that I didn’t know I needed.
NY: You really got into NY nightlife a few years later around 2013/2014, in your early twenties. You were lucky because it experienced a rebirth during that decade and you took part of it, throwing your own parties .WAVCAVE, with “a mission to bring inclusivity and lightheartedness to the scene.” How did that happen?
MR: My best friend Jenny and I made it a personal mission to try to hit every party we could in Brooklyn and we started to notice that a lot of these events seemed to take themselves a little too seriously. We were trying to find a space where people were smiling on the dance floor and the DJs weren’t playing the same droning beat for hours on end. We started to joke that we should throw our own event series and then one day it stopped being a joke! We locked down a few venues with the goal of creating a space for people who simply wanted to dance and meet new friends and where DJs could enjoy themselves and not feel locked into a genre. Egos were left at the door and partygoers were encouraged to “return to their bodies” for the night. Jenny used to work at Milk Bar, so she’d bring a whole cake to share with strangers. One night we bought a bunch of body paint and told people if they came right at doors, they could take part in “initiation” which was just Jenny painting their skin while I played heady ambient music.
“I have so many memories of feeling the sun warm my skin after a long night out, laying out on a rooftop, bagel in hand.”
NY: What was the focus of the party?
MR: To interact with people and allow yourself to discover something new, and so naturally it transformed into a collective and we even ran a shared artists studio space for a few years.
NY: DJ Mag described your music as “art house film composer meets basement rave.” That sounds like a New Yorker (or Brooklyner) cliché, doesn’t it?
MR: My music is inspired by how I’m feeling and I’m frequently working through highs and lows, trying to find balance within that duality. In the same way, this city is constantly shifting shapes– you can find yourself having a coffee in a quiet cafe during the day and raving in the basement of that very same space at night (literally this was the setup of a venue that we used to host .WAVCAVE parties in). I’m exploring that element of surprise and multidimensionality in my music.
NY: You’ve just been featured in [UK superstar DJ] Sasha’s latest compilation. What does it mean to you?
MR: It’s completely surreal to see my work alongside artists that I’ve admired for years. One of the most exciting parts has been connecting with the other artists on the compilation who all seem to be working on a similar conceptual frequency. I feel like the vision I had for QRTR when I began this project in 2015 is finally coming to fruition and aligning with my tastes as a music fan. After nearly a year of creative tossing and turning, this feels like a new journey for me.
NY: What’s coming next?
MR: I’m working on my second album at the moment, and I think the folks who are enjoying “Forest Sprint” won’t help but fall in love with the sonic world I’m building.
NY: Can you describe your first perfect party post-Covid in NYC?
MR: I just want to be dancing on a roof as the sun sets with a gin & tonic in my hand surrounded by friends. Maybe there is also a BBQ happening. And perhaps I deejay for a bit too. Mostly I’m dancing.
NY: Are you more into NY sunset or sunrise?
MR: I love a good sunset, but there aren’t many things more satisfying than being awake to witness the sun rise over the city. I have so many memories of feeling the sun warm my skin after a long night out: walking to Tina’s to get breakfast. Taking a cab home and rolling down the window on the BQE. Laying out on a rooftop, bagel in hand.
MUSIC
Soundcloud. Spotify. Bandcamp.
QRTR is featured on Sasha’s latest compilation LUZoSCURA.
Meagan Picks Five New York Classics
Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx: We’re New Here (2011)
“This remix album came out just six months into my first year living in New York, and it felt like I had discovered an entirely new universe sonically while also quite literally discovering the universe that is New York City. This record feels like NYC to me – it’s gritty, but polished, but menacing, but hopeful and unlike anything you’ve ever known before. Jamie xx is one of my biggest musical influences and Gil Scott-Heron is a fucking legend. And well... NY Is Killing Me is a masterpiece. I think most people who move here from somewhere else usually experience that phase where they feel like they are getting chewed up and spit out by the city, but the people who end up staying are the ones who found the community they’d been searching for their whole life in that very process. That’s why this particular record resonates so much with me, because music is the reason I’m still here (on many levels).”
Caribou: Swim (2010)
“Although this album came out in 2010, I didn’t actually discover it myself until around 2013 while dating my first girlfriend. She introduced me to Caribou and Dan Snaith has easily become one of my favorite musicians since then. I love every single track on this album and each one reminds me of different late night/early morning adventures I experienced while discovering NYC nightlife in my early twenties. Whenever I hear “Odessa,” I think of memories driving across the Brooklyn bridge with friends late at night. During the middle of lockdown in Brooklyn (fall 2020), I purchased Swim on vinyl. I put it on in my living room and danced by myself for the entirety of the album. It was a warm and bright moment in a really dark year.”
Chrome Sparks: Sparks (2013)
“Ahhh, I’m getting flooded with nostalgia. One of my favorite memories at 285 Kent is seeing Chrome Sparks play around the time this album came out. RIP 285 KENT! It was around this time in 2013 that I really started to sink my teeth into Brooklyn nightlife and realized there was a whole world that I desperately wanted to be part of that I had no idea even existed until then. I remember watching the “Send The Pain On” music video for the first time in my tiny alphabet city apartment.”
Warpaint: Warpaint (2014)
“I discovered Warpaint on a website called 8tracks that I used to frequent in college and I remember playing Elephants on repeat in my dorm room in the East Village for about two years straight. Their self-titled album felt like such an evolution to their sound and came into my life during the same year that I went to my first music festival – Bonnaroo. I spent Thursday through Sunday at the fest and truthfully my whole life changed on the Saturday night I spent on the farm. It’s the reason I began the QRTR project. And I got to spend the following Sunday laying out in the grass listening to Warpaint perform live. I brought that experience with me back to New York and immediately downloaded [music production software] Ableton.”
Jacques Greene: Feel Infinite (2017)
“This record feels like love in a Brooklyn nightclub to me. When it came out, I had been dating my current girlfriend for just a few months. I must have played Real Time and You Can’t Deny in every DJ set for about a year. I think of sweaty, dark dance floors and the rising sun. Jacques Greene continues to be a huge inspiration to my music since then.”
